(It.; Ger. Chitarron, Chitaron).
A name used synonymously with tiorba (see Theorbo in Italy during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The type of lute denoted by this humanist, classicizing term (chitarrone means, literally, a large kithara) was associated particularly with Jacopo Peri, Giulio Caccini and the other early writers of monody from the 1590s until about 1630 (see fig.1). After 1600, the alternative name tiorba was often used. Two contemporary references, Praetorius (1619, p.52) and Piccinini (1623, p.5), led some modern writers to conjecture that the chitarrone was strung with wire and the tiorba with gut. However, this theory has been discredited by subsequent research (see Mason, pp.10–14).
The instrument was used chiefly for vocal accompaniment, but also served as a general continuo instrument. For solo music in tablature, the following sources specifically designate chitarrone: 1604 G.G. Kapsberger: Libro primo d’intavolatura di chitarone (Venice, 1604)1616 G.G. Kapsberger: Libro secondo d’intavolatura di chitarrone (Rome, 1616, lost)1623 A. Piccinini: Intavolatura di liuto, et di chitarrone, libro primo (Bologna, 1623)1626 G.G. Kapsberger: Libro terzo d’intavolatura di chitarrone (Rome, 1626, lost)1640 G.G. Kapsberger: Libro quarto d’intavolatura di chitarrone (Rome, 1640) Most sources for the instrument’s solo repertory use the alternate name tiorba, or, in the case of many manuscript sources, the instrument is not named. For a listing of these sources, see Theorbo.
PraetoriusSM, ii
A. Banchieri: Conclusioni nel suono dell’organo (Bologna, 1609/R, 2/1626 as Armoniche conclusioni nel suono dell’organo, Eng. trans., 1982)
N. Fortune: ‘Continuo Instruments in Italian Monodies’, GSJ, vi (1953), 10–13
M. Prynne: ‘James Talbot’s Manuscript, IV: Plucked Strings – the Lute Family’, GSJ, xiv (1961), 52–68
R. Spencer: ‘Chitarrone, Theorbo and Archlute’, EMc, iv (1976), 407–23
D.A. Smith: ‘On the Origin of the Chitarrone’, JAMS, xxxii (1979), 440–62
F. Hellwig: ‘The Morphology of Lutes with Extended Bass Strings’, EMc, ix (1981), 447–54
R. Spencer: ‘English Nomenclature of Extended Lutes’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.23 (1981), 57–9
K.B. Mason: The Chitarrone and its Repertoire in Early Seventeenth-Century Italy (Aberystwyth, 1989)
P. Beier: Review of K.B. Mason: The Chitarrone and its Repertoire in Early Seventeenth-Century Italy (Aberystwyth, 1989), The Lute, xxxii (1992), 84–7
JAMES TYLER